Kitchen Cabinet Redo

I I will tell you this was no small job and it's not something you could do in just weekend by yourself. There was some trial and error involved but even though it's hard work and your kitchen will be a mess for a while, it was so worth it!

I have been slowly painting all my orange oak builder's grade orange oak trim and doors white.  It's taken a while because of life being really busy with the kid's activities and actually having a job I have to work at as well.  I've been putting off the kitchen cabinets for a while now.  I finally decided one day I was going to start and knowing that once I started sanding, there would be no going back.  This is precise reason I rarely have any before pictures because I just take a piece and start sanding or painting making myself get started.  I do have some pictures so you get the idea of what it looked like before but not those perfect before and after pics that are the exact picture at the exact angle.  Oh well, I think you'll get the idea when you take a look.

The first thing I did was to take all the upper doors off the hinges.  I removed the hinges and even the screws to set aside to spray paint.  I wanted to save as much money as possible on this project so I reused all the hardware except the brass and porcelain handles.  You can use a hand held screw driver and manually take all the handles and hinges off but I used my husband's DeWalt drill and it cut down the time tremendously.  You just have to be careful.  The drill was pretty high powered and it can easily strip the screw or bore the head out if you're aren't careful.  I took the screws out and punched them into a shoe box to paint the tops.  The rest of the screw will be in the cabinet so it doesn't really matter what color they are.  I used Rustoleum Stain Nickel spray that I got at Menards. I have used this paint before and I love it!  It's very durable and the head on it works so well to grip.  I also used it on the hinges.  I did all the spray painting first.  Don't spray paint around your cabinet doors, you'll have nickel specks.  I did this outside in the grass on the paper and it dries very quickly.

 For the hinges, I just rolled out some of my daughter's craft paper and laid the hinges out and spray painted them.  These are actually my door hinges in my house but I wanted to show you a picture of what I did. What I learned is that you have to not only do both sides, you also have to bend the hinges so you get the inside or it will be striped.  These were brass when I started.  They seem to be holding up well with the opening and closing of hinges.  I only had to use one coat of spray paint on them.

The next step was to sand all the cabinet doors.  Since they are pretty detailed, it was hard to get the edges inside the grooves sanded.  As you can tell, my teenagers were more than thrilled to be sanding.  They each had an electric sander so the job went pretty quickly.  I think they stayed and sanded for about 3 hours that afternoon then helped some here and there along the way.  I believe they wanted to go to the movies with friends that night so I figured their time was worth $40.  Our Maggie dog got in on some of the action too but only got a measly dog bone for her efforts.

I got my sander last fall at Home Depot.  It's the Rigid Sander 2.4 1/4 sheet.  You will need to get at least two different kinds of sandpaper, one that is more coarse and one that is smoother.  Start sanding with the rough paper to take the finish of your cabinets then finish with the smoother paper to make it as smooth as a babie's tush.  It works really well if you do several doors at a time with the rough sandpaper then go through and use the smooth paper so you aren't constantly changing the paper.

Once the doors are all sanded, the painting fun began.  For these oak doors, it took three coats of paint.  I used Duraclean Dutchboy paint from Menards in a Satin finish.  I wanted to be able to clean it but didn't want a high gloss since they are supposed to look somewhat rustic.  I used a 2" brush with an angled edge.  It's my preference to use an angled edge but a regular high quality brush would work.  I wouldn't skimp on the brush type for this project.  The cheap brushes tend to loose their bristles and you don't want that on your cabinet doors.  I would paint most of the fronts of the cabinet doors then move to the backs by flipping them over after a few hours.  I didn't use any kind of special paint or anything expensive to paint them, just painted off white paint on them.

They looked really nice at this point but they were too white to match my off white appliances and I wanted a more custom look.  

 I played with some brown wax and clear wax and this is what I ended up with, (the cabinet on the left).  I really liked it but it was too brown for the look I wanted.  I just painted my walls gray and this wasn't going to look right at all.  I knew I liked the custom look better than just white so I went back to the drawing board.  I tried some black wax and that made the cabinets look gray and dingy.  

 The brown waxed cabinet door trial.  I had rubber gloves on and just dipped a fingertip of rag into the brown wax and smoothed it just along the edges.

I have tried different finishes on different pieces of furniture.  I have tried stains, glazes, chalk paint, and waxes.  The trick with white finishes is finding something that is durable that isn't going to turn your white paint yellow.  Many products such as polyurathane will do exactly that.  I saw this wax in the paint section of Wal-mart a couple of years ago and thought I'd see how it compares to the others I've tried.  I noticed it was pretty runny compared to what I've used in the past.  Waxes can be kind of sticky once your piece is finished but I trudged on trying to find the perfect finish.

I wish I had taken pictures of the technique I used to distress the doors but I didn't.  I had rubber glocves on.  I took my sander and barely sanded some of the edges of details of the doors.  They were bare wood when I did this.  I took a cloth that idn't fuzzy at all.  You don't want little pieces of fuzz in the paint.  I dipped just a fingertip of the rag in black paint.  It was chalk paint I had made myself.  DIY Chalk Paint Recipe.  I smoothed the black paint very thinly on the details barely touching the cabinet so you could see it a little darker in places and a little lighter in places.  I then put the Americana clear wax on another cloth pretty thick and went over the black paint spreading the paint out in a straight line, meaning following the edge of the cabinet.  Do not go in circles or cross wise, it will ruin the look.  I then spread the wax out all along the face of the door making sure the wax went everywhere.  Don't do this too think or it will look globby, that's a word right?

This picture probably shows the details the best.  They have very little black on them but just enough to accentuate the details of the door.  If you like a perfectly smooth cabinet door, the wax will not be an option for you.  They have a little rough texture just like a chalk paint would on a piece of furniture.  I kind of like that finish though since kitchens are never completely clean.  It seems to hide some of the fingerprints and little spills here and there.  

Here are the uppers when I finished them.  I love the handles but couldn't wait to get the drawers done to see how the drawer pulls looked with the handles.

 Here is the finished kitchen.  As you can see, my island is a different color.  I went from having a red kitchen/dining/living room to light gray.  I was so tired of all the oak that I didn't want to become tired of all the white so I went with a different color for the island with the same handles/pulls.  I almost painted the island turquoise but know myself all too well.  I'd probably get tired of it and change it in a few years.  At least with the black and white, I can change the paint color in the kitchen and not have to do the cabinets again since they are a neutral color.

 We still need to get the flooring done.  That's our next project. 

 We are also going to change out the countertops.  I'm thinking will do DIY concrete countertops but I'm not sure if I'm that brave yet.  My husband can make the frames for the countertops, I just need to practice with the concrete first.  

The floors are going to be a dark, rich color.  We need to find a window when we'll be home for 3-4 days to get that done.  We are doing baseball and softball right now, so maybe at the end of the month.  

Here are the handles I picked out.  I bought them at Home Depot.  I actually bought one of each and decided I was going to keep them so I ordered the rest online.  They wouldn't have had that many in stock.  The handle has some really nice detail in it and I think it goes great with the rustic look! 

They aren't made from the same company but when I held them up to compare them, the nickel finishes were exactly the same and they looked really good together!

Here are my kitchen cabinets completely finished.  I stayed up until 11:00 that night to take this picture because I couldn't wait to share it with you all! I LOVE MY KITCHEN NOW!  I can't tell you in pictures how much brighter and alive my kitchen looks!  I'm so excited how it turned out.  Feel free to share if you like the progress of my kitchen and ask questions about any technique I used.  

DIY Window Note Board

While I was home today as the cable company worked on our internet, I decided to do a little DIY project.  I have seen this idea in various flea markets and saw one at Hobby Lobby the other day so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I've had this window on my porch as a decoration on a bench.  I snagged it from a pile of junk at a site where they were going to bulldoze an old house.  It's kind of sentimental for me because this house was next to our old tobacco barn where I spent so much of my childhood playing in the fields and working and knew the nice older couple well.  

These windows are pretty easy to find.  Finding one with broken panes will cost less so just be on the lookout.  

 You start with a window frame, no glass.  This didn't have any glass but if you have a window with glass you can either break the glass or pull the window putty back and remove it.

 You will need chicken wire.  Mine came from my brother-in-law already rusted and aged.  If you don't have any chicken wire, they sell it at all the local farm stores.  I wanted mine to look old so I lucked out!

 The first thing I did was turn the window over and cut the chicken wire to fit the window frame.  I used wire cutters to cut it.  You'll have to be careful when working with it because the cut pieces are sharp.  I then staple gunned, (using 9/16 staples) the chicken wire to the back of the window frame pulling it tight as I went along.

 I then measured my fabric, (I got it from Hobby Lobby on sale for 30% off) to size of the frame not quite to the edges, leaving about 6" on each side.  I didn't want any to hang over the edges.  I staple gunned the fabric right over the chicken wire starting at the top and pulling fabric down tight as I stapled along the edges.

 I hung picture hangers on the back and put two screws in the wall to hang it.  Here is the finished product.  It turned out so cute, I love it!

I'm going to use it to hang my daughter's art work, notes, and sports schedules on it.  I bought these cute little painted mini clothes pin clips at Hobby Lobby in the scrapbooking/embellishments section.  They came in lots of colors and patterns.  You can also use regular clothes pins and put Washi tape on them to jazz them up.

Valentine Swag

I saw this idea on My Name is Snickerdoodle.  It was so cute I thought my little Emmie could make it.  She's six years old so I thought this would be a perfect craft for her since she's always looking for something fun to do on a snowy or Saturday.  

I had a blunt needle in an old sewing box I bought at an auction.  We got the sparkly toms at Hobby Lobby and I used some left over needle point thread I had from a project from years back.  Any of the supplies can be found at Hobby Lobby, JoAnne's or Michael's.

 We cut the needlepoint thread to the size we wanted it.  It is a little hard to keep a long piece of thread straight and tangle free.  We ended up spreading it out on my bed one night.  She was excited to get started.  

 Here you can see she has them spread out and sized.  The larger poms were easier for her to work with than the smaller poms.

 I ended up knotting the thread at the needle since it kept slipping off on her.  After I did that, she was able to complete the entire string by herself.

 Emmie completed the top strand and about 3/4" of the bottom strand and I finished it up.

As you can see Emmie has been busy drawing a town on the antique chalkboard.  We plan on adding painting and hearts to the chalkboard when we have an afternoon to do so.  I think it turned out pretty cute!  I think we'll wrap it around an oatmeal can or Pringles can to store it after Valentine's Day otherwise it will get tangled.  

Coffee Table DIY

I saw an idea on Pinterest.  I thought that looks so easy, I could put that together in about 30 minutes, paint it and be done.  You know how all DIY projects go.  They look like a weekend project and turn into two months.  This was a pretty easy project even if it took about 3 weekends between stopping to run kids around and make meals.  Yes, it's hard to get my DIY hobbies done while I work and feed a family.  I suppose that makes my projects that much more rewarding.  

As I looked through ideas for a pallet coffee table, I really thought I was going to stack two pallets and screw them together.  I've worked a lot with pallets so I'm not sure why I thought this would work.  The problem with stacking two pallets together is that they are not the best quality wood so no two pallets are hardly ever the same size.  Also, pallets have spaces between the wood and pretty big spaces at that.  This is not ideal for a table top.  That left us with taking the pallets apart.  If you've ever taken a pallet apart, you will know that this is quite a feat in itself. 

My husband decided to make a frame out of 2x4's and then fill it in with pallet wood.  We have two different sizes of pallet boards so we had to play with the wood to make it look right.  

As you can see, we used longer boards for the edges then filled in with the small pieces of wood.  

 Once he made the frame we realized that all the pallet wood pieces from various pallets were also different widths.  This is something we didn't take into consideration before building the frame.

 As you can see here, we had quite a thin gap between the two rows of pallet wood.  We ended up cutting them down with a table saw to make the middle pieces more the same width and filled in as we went along.  I figured for this table, I was going to paint it so it really didn't matter what the wood looked like.

 Here is the table top completely put together.  It really looked pretty this way but we have a pallet wall on one of our livingroom walls so I didn't want too much pallet wood in the room.  

 I chose to dry brush paint the pallet.  This is the underneath part of the table top.  I went ahead and painted it too since you can see the inside through the slats where the books sit.

 Here's the first coat of white.  I did go back and touch it up.  Dry brush painting is where you get a little paint on your brush and quickly brush it across the item you are painting.  Sometimes you can also wipe the brush on a rag first before applying the paint.  You swipe the paint on in places here and there and fill in as you'd like.

After I painted this layer, we started putting the second layer together.  After we built the second later, I painted it and we screwed both together.  Now you can probably guess why this took about three weekends.  I had to dry brush, let it dry, build the second frame, paint it, let it dry and so on.  

 Here is the finished product.  I didn't take pictures of the assembly since I was running a child to a practice and my husband just completed it while I was gone.  Probably to get it out of his garage.  You'll notice the rough edges.  We did go back and trim those up by pulling the splinters out with pliers.  We also removed the glue you see above the wheel.  

The metal casters are from Menards.  The link provided isn't the exact size but it is the type.  I think I spent about $7.00 a piece on them.  They are pretty heavy duty.  My husband glued them and screwed them into the wood at the bottom.  If you notice, he added another layer to the bottom of the table because it wasn't tall enough compared to our sectional.  The screw will also stay in the 2x4 much better than pallet board.  Pallet wood tends to split easily.

This is a picture of the table before he added the last layer to make the table taller but I wanted you to see how the books fit in.  This pallet is not only easy to do, it's custom for our living room.  It's really quite big which is what I wanted.  I also wanted a table that was sturdy.  My family can prop their feed up on it, my six year old can spread her art supplies out on it or all her Shopkins, and my teenagers can spread their textbooks on it while doing homework.  This is pretty darn heavy even though it doesn't look like it is.  Thankfully it rolls.  It is actually the one thing people comment on when they walk into our house, this and the pallet wall.  I think it turned out amazing!  I'm so glad we decided to finish it!  

For The Love Of The Game

I don't know when my love of baseball started.  Maybe it was when I was a little girl as my dad coached little league team after team. He coached high school boys when we were little on a little bitty baseball field carved out of a corn field.  You know the field Kevin Costner makes in, "Field of Dreams?"  That's what the little field in Farley, Missouri looked like.  It was surrounded on all sides by corn except the dirt road that led to the field.  There was corn across the road too.  

My dad took a hodge podge group of boys from the area and surrounding, a Sandlot type group of boys and developed a winning team out of them.  He would have practices where if you made a mistake; you went over it and over until you got it right.  He was a tough coach when he needed to be but offered much praise when it was deserved.  You had to work for your position, no handouts was his motto.  My mom helped run the Recreation Organization and the concession stand at the time.  We worked many hours in that hot, concession stand shack.  I remember my mom creating meals that were great, no canned cheese nachos there.  She also kept score at all the games as well.  It was a family affair. 

I learned to throw a softball and pitch at that field.  My dad would catch for me and work on my throw with me.  He later went on to coach my brother and his friends in baseball.  They had great teams also.  I also know his coaching wasn't always popular with the helicopter parents that wanted everyone to have fun.  My dad was spending hours in the hot sun coaching, developing the boys to become responsible young men and teammates.  My dad coached to win.  He loved the game and the boys he coached although he never said as much.  It was an unspoken love for the kids and the game.
I adored that little field in Farley, Missouri.  It was our own little field of dreams in the middle of the corn field where many childhood memories of my own as well as my friends were being formed, little did we know it at the time.

My Mom and Dad at East Platte where they first started coaching baseball

I also remember my grandparents loving the Royals.  If the Royals were playing we were either listening to them at my grandma's kitchen table while my grandpa played cards, listening to them from the garage while my other grandpa fiddled in his garden, or me laying on my stomach, head in hands in front of the TV at my grandma's house watching the game.  We'd take a break to have a chocolate chip & 7-Up float then go back making sure not to miss a sigle play.  At home, we'd get the farm work done so we could get to the house to eat supper and watch the game.  Our family has always loved the Royals growing up outside of Kansas City, Missouri.

We'd attend games from time to time as a treat.  We'd often to go to the games when the Royals weren't any good.  It was so much fun to watch baseball win or lose.  I became a teenager playing softball and 1985 rolled around.  I remember the Royals winning the World Series.  The Kansas City area was on top the world with excitement.  I had a major crush on George Brett.  He was a major hunk to a young teenager and his picture was everywhere.  He even played saxophone at the Huey Lewis concert I went to.  He was an icon in Kansas City.

Time went by and I was pregnant with my first child.  I was going to have a little boy.  We hadn't decided or I should say agreed on a name.  I liked the name Hunter, my husband liked Woodrow, (a Lonesome dove Fanatic that he is).  We couldn't agree.   I went to a teaching conference and we had some time to kill.  We walked by a little Hallmark store in a small town in Kansas.  I saw a black and white picture with letters you could insert into the picture frame.  It was a picture of a little boy with a Royals hat on and the name, "Tucker" spelled out under it.  I had the perfect name for my little boy.  I knew he'd be a little baseball player or end up being a bull rider like his dad was.  Either way, Tuck sounded like a perfect baseball or cowboy name.  My husband loved the name too so our little Tucker Scott was born in August 1999.

Tucker playing with The Renegades Traveling Baseball

He played t-ball then little league.  He learned to love the game of baseball like I figured he would.  He also learned that there are plenty of lows to match the highs in the games.  So many lessons to be learned in the game of baseball.  
He started playing on competitive team  We spent hours and hours, weekend after weekend at the baseball field either practicing or at tournaments out of town.  I never tired of watching baseball.  I think it's safe to say it was in my blood.  Time went on and we went from one team to another.  He even got cut off the team he loved when he was in 7th grade.  He said, "I don't think I'm good enough, I'm quitting!"  At that point we gave him two choices; he could quit and disappoint both his grandpas, his parents, and everyone that still believed in him or he could stick it out, tryout for another team, learn from his mistakes and get better.  After a few days he decided to stick with it.  It was one of those life lessons that was so valuable for him.  Our family has never been quitters so I wasn't suprised when he said, "I can't quit!"

The Midwest Stix Summer Team 2013

My son continued to play Legion ball with his buddies, playing teams that were much older and loosing lots of games.  Some teams were made up of 17 & 18 year-olds.  He had to work much harder than he ever had to and learn over and over what it feels like to lose but also learn what it means to scratch and claw with every bit of determination he has to play his hardest to get a run on the board. After all he was only 14 playing much older kids but was playing with his high school friends.  They were brothers win or lose in this crazy sport!

Legion Summer Team 2015

He's in high school now.  He played both JV and Varsity ball.  He never got to play a game on the varsity team but he learned how to work hard and gain valuable knowledge from the older guys.  He was learning everyday what it meant to be part of the team.  That team went on to make it to the state playoff.  His grandpa had been very sick throughout the entire season and a freak accident happened at the care facility the week of playoffs.  It came down to the playoff game and I got the phone call, I needed to come to the hospital.  The boys had just won the the game and were getting ready to play for first in the state.  I made the decision to leave Tucker at the championship game knowing his grandpa was watching over him yet so sad he wasn't there to watch it.  His team ended up winning the state championship game, something his grandpa would have been so proud to see.  Tucker didn't play in the game but he was part of the team, part of the brotherhood of baseball.  His grandpa passed on early that next morning with Tucker by his side.  He received so many phone calls, texts, and messages passed on from the team.  When they were all back together, they prayed for him.  Another teammate had lost his grandma that season while another lost his grandpa.  Baseball is just one of those sports where your teammates are like your brothers.  You are together at practices day in and day out both in the season and off season.  You spend so much time together, your teammates are like your brothers.  They know you on a whole different level than other friends do.  They can tell if your swing is off, your pitch isn't quite right or wild throw has something attached to it.  They know when something is bothering you.  They are with you in the good and bad times.  No words need to be spoken, they can read your feelings by how your perform on the field and they can pick you up when life has brought you down.

Tucker's Grandpa Pete in his earlier years

The State Championship Baseball Team

State Championship Ring

We haven't had much time to go to the current Royals team games. We've been playing our own games that there's not much spare time to go watch the Royals.  The parents have kept up on the Royals games via cell phones and tablets while watching our boys play.  Baseball parents all have something in common, we all love baseball too.  You have to love it to sit in 90-100 degree weather for hours to watch game after game, stay in hotels, and get up and do it all over the next day or the next weekend. We have scrubbed many baseball pants together and went to many a car washes late at night to get that ground in red dirt out of white baseball pants!  We are in it together!

A Trip to the Carwash to wash white baseball pants

This Royals team has been special the last 2-3 years.  Everyone in the midwest has watched closely at their progress.  As we sat at games we talked about how special these boys were.  We watched, listened, checked scores live on the internet.  This past year has been so exciting!  Our Roayls team had momentum, it seemed unstoppable.  Of course there would be a loss here and there and the errors that come with baseball.  There would be some that would doubt but for those die hard baseball lovers, you could sense something special about this team.  We have watched Salvy's huge smile capture viewer's heart.  His sense of humor, playful boyish nature that is a little ornery, his selfies and Instagram videos with Cain that show a true friendship.  Hosmer's humble nature that help people connect to him.  He has that hometown boy way about him that people fall in love with and he's easy on the eyes cut jawline, perfect beard, and one of a kind haircut.  Not that I noticed, I've just taken note of that information from all the conversations I overhear from my girlfriends, well maybe not.  

We also hurt with Chris Young and Mike Moustakas as they lost parents during the season.  We felt their pain and listened over and over how they relied on their teammates to get them throughout their heartbreak.  They were playing for their parents knowing they'd want them to continue playing the sport they loved.  

We have watched Ben Zobrist and his pregnant wife Julianna along with their adorable kids celebrate victories together and how they stick together as a family.  Win or lose, Ben has said he wants his family by his side.  He flew his expecting any day wife and two young children to New York for the World Series on a private jet because he wanted them there.  Something we that have families can relate to.  They later went on to name their newborn daughter, Blaise Royal.  What a perfect name for a little girl born right after the World Series!  The Royals fans have fallen in love with this family as well, putting God first in their lives, traveling together, and showing what a true family unit is and can be!

We watched and read Edison Volquez losing his father and him not knowing it while pitching in Game 1 of the World Series.  Our hearts were broken for him.  This is something that hit home for our family since there was a similar parallel of Tucker's grandpa slipping and quite possibly not making it while Tucker was at his state championship game.  That had to be one of the hardest things Ned Yost had to do in his life.  Once again he said his teammates helped him get through the hardest moment in his life.

 

There was Davis, Cain, Escobar, and Colon making huge plays in the World Series.  Moustakas,  Hosmer, Cain, Gordon, Zobrist, Couto, and Perez being key players.  Hosmer said it best in his article when he wrote that this Royals team was, " No Fluke."  It's like they were brought together by some divine intervention.  They were a team of brothers destined to win.  They had each other's back even if it usually occurred in the last few innings of each game.

We fell in love with this team, we all did.  They were like family to us.  They were getting the nation's attention, not for just their athletic abilities but because we were drawn to them, all of them. This was a team we have loved watching night after night in our homes, families visiting the stadium, following on twitter, and keeping up with their Instagrams.  They made people who like baseball start to love baseball again.  They were the comeback kids, the guys not paid very much but stayed to be part of a team, they made us believe in them time and time again.  They made Kansas City proud painting the town blue, welcoming our boys home along the interstate, at the stadium, the huge 800,000 plus attendance at the parade and welcoming ceremony and cheering as Jonny Gomes pumped everyone up!  It brought friends and neighbors together, made grown men cry to see their beloved team win the World Series, and brought pride to a town that had been patiently waiting since 1985.  This part of the country loves baseball.  

I am one of those fans, Missouri born, (outside of Kansas City but live in Kansas now), raised by a small town baseball coach, and raised to love the game.  I had to share not only the love of the game with others; my children will remember this moment in time as well.  This is a unique time filled with special players that have shaped all our lives.  I hope my own son has learned more about what it means to be a teammate, a brother, the excitement and let downs that come with the game, and most importantly how to love the game in a deeper way.  It is a divine sport.   I can only say thank you to my father, "The coach", the players and coaches that have helped develop my son and been there for him in times of need, and all the parents that surround us as a baseball family.  Until next spring when we hear those familiar words, "Play ball", I will cherish the memories for the love of the game!